Marijuana Blog

I wrote an article earlier today that touched on a period of time back when I grew marijuana. It was the mid-late 2000’s, when the rules surrounding medical marijuana were different than they are today. Back then I was a patient, and I grew for my cousin and two of my friends. They designated me as their grower, we designated my house as the official grow site for all four of us, and we were each responsible for our individual patient fees to the state and to our doctors.

It was a much simpler time. Since that time the fee to even be a patient has gone up, with proposals to jack the fee up even higher. When the initial fee hike started, I quit being a medical marijuana patient in Oregon because I simply couldn’t afford it. Paying my doctor, the clinic, and then a hefty fee to the state? No thanks. After I got out of the program, fees also started for designating someone else as your grower, which I always thought was ridiculous. And now there’s a proposal on the table to quadruple that fee. Per Oregon Live:

Medical marijuana growers would be subject to a $200 annual fee for every patient they grow for under a proposal being considered by the Oregon Health Authority.

Medical marijuana growers in Oregon can grow cannabis for up to four patients. Under current rules, the state charges $50 for every patient a grower takes on, but recent changes that expanded the health authority’s oversight of production and processing prompted officials to propose the steeper fees to help cover the agency’s expenses.

PORTLAND, Ore. — Members of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs have approved a plan to build a facility to grow marijuana on their reservation in central Oregon and to sell it at tribe-owned stores outside the reservation.

The tribes are among the first in the country to enter the marijuana-growing business, a year after a Department of Justice policy indicated tribes could grow and sell marijuana under the same guidelines as states that opt to legalize.

Tribal officials said more than 80 percent of tribal voters favored the proposal in the referendum, which was held Thursday.

Warm Springs’s plan is to build a 36,000-square-foot greenhouse to grow and process the cannabis. Officials expect the project will create more than 80 jobs. Annual net revenue from the three proposed tribe-owned retail shops would top $26 million, the officials estimated.

The tribes say they will enter into an agreement with state agencies to ensure that testing and other regulations are consistent with state law. Sales are set to start in winter 2016.